“I like this kind of joke she plays on you,” said John enviously. “I wish she’d play one like that on me, too. I say, Mary, do you suppose there are any more secrets hidden in your old library? Let’s look now.”
“I wonder!” said Mary, looking curiously about the dingy room. “But I don’t want to look any further now. I am satisfied. Oh, Mumsie! Just look!” Mary put the chain of the new watch around her neck, tucked the little chronometer into her belt, and trotted away to see the effect in the crooked old mirror of the parlor.
John wanted to take down the crow and examine him further.
“Come along, John,” said his father, pushing the little brother toward the door. “This is Mary’s room, you know. We aren’t ever to poke around here without her leave, mind you.”
“No,” said John reluctantly. “But I do wish—!” And he cast a longing glance back over his shoulder as his father shut the door on Mary’s mysterious library.
CHAPTER III
A VISITOR
THE very next day Dr. Corliss shut himself up in his new study while Mrs. Corliss and Mary set to work to make the old house as fresh as new. They brushed up the dust and cobwebs and scrubbed and polished everything until it shone. They dragged many ugly old things off into the attic, and pushed others back into the corners until there should be time to decide what had best be done with them. Meanwhile, John was helping to tidy up the little garden, snipping off dead leaves, cheering up the flowers, and punishing the greedy weeds.
The whistles of Crowfield factories shrieked noon before they all stopped to take breath. Then Mrs. Corliss gasped and said:—
“Oh, Mary! I forgot all about luncheon! What are we going to feed your poor father with, I wonder, to say nothing of our hungry selves?”
Just at this moment John came running into the house with a very dirty face. “There’s some one coming down the street,” he called upstairs; “I think she’s coming in here.” He peeped out of the parlor window discreetly. “Yes, she’s opening the gate now.”